


The Blessings of Elua

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first winter in Montreve.  Joscelin remembers the past and Phedre presents her hopes for the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blessings of Elua

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Raindrops on Roses

 

 

Joscelin stands in front of one of the great windows on the second floor, looking out onto the snow covered mountains. This room is one of my favorites, for the light lingers here longest. Now even this room grows dim as evening falls, full of long shadow. Dark comes early in Montrève in winter.

I step through the open door, setting the heavy volume collected from the library onto the small reading table, and join Joscelin at the window. The glass is old and the details of the landscape seen through it are distorted with age and imperfect glasswork. The servants cleared paths through to the out buildings this morning, but already they are beginning to fill in again. The skies are grey and snow is starting to fall again. Wind blows the snow around, mixing new snow with old. 

I can smell the sweat on him, he is recently come from the courtyard he favors to practice his Cassiline arts. Likely he meditated afterward in the snow wearing clothing no heavier than the light wool tunic and loosely gathered trousers that he wears now. The clothes he wears come from the sheep of the newest Countess of Montrève, who had known nothing of sheep or the spinning and weaving of wool before her arrival at her new estate. 

Joscelin turns away from the window to look at me. There is an odd look in his eyes - not pain, I believe, and I have reason enough to recognize that emotion. Something akin to it, perhaps regret. 

"When I was very young," he says, "in Siovale, every year after the first good snowfall there was a celebration. I remember huge bonfires - flames which would leap higher than my head. The young men and a number of the women spent the weeks before hunting, to prepare for the evening feast. I even remember that the cooks spent part of the morning boiling sugar and spices and such, making a kind of syrup. I remember the kitchens would be full to bursting with everyone who could come up with an excuse to be there - it was considered good luck for the winter to be given the first cup. In the afternoon, the children would get a cup of the syrup and pour it into the snow, where it would freeze into candy. That was why you had to wait until a really good snowfall, or all the snow would melt before it was time to make the candy. It's very strange - I had forgotten all about that until just now." 

He turns back to the window, staring out it meditatively, as if to make up for the sudden, ragged outburst of speech. 

For weeks after we arrived here, Joscelin could hardly tear himself from my side. I think perhaps I had slipped out of sight of him once to often in our travels, intent on placing myself in danger, for him to feel easy in leaving me alone for more than was absolutely necessary. Knowing in his head that we were safe here did not matter as much as making sure beyond a shadow of doubt that if anything happened to me, it would be after he had died defending me. 

I almost prefer that paranoid, near oppressive watchfulness to this new melancholy. Does he regret the path his life had taken? It was surely not what he envisioned for himself at nine, any more than I could have imagined my own future so many years ago. What were his dreams, his hopes of more than half a lifetime ago? Surely he had known by then that he was to be given into the keeping of the Cassilines. Had he dreamed of one day guarding the King himself?. I do not think that he regrets knowing me, but I do know that even if he did he would have not in the smallest part served me less well. 

He is a wonder, my Perfect Companion, and I am not strong enough to wish him anywhere but by my side. Even to make his path easier. 

I speak with the cook after leaving Joscelin. Longest Night is tomorrow, and in the hand of a lesser person the kitchens would be in chaos. As it is, everyone is busy chopping meat, kneading bread, stirring sauces and mixing mysterious but wonderfully scented foods. She is not wholly pleased by my request, I think, as it adds to her still lengthy list of things she had yet to do, but she promises to have it ready by tomorrow. 

So it is that the next day I hold a smallish cup of pale gold liquid, and explain to Joscelin that I wish to tramp out into the midwinter cold to find a patch of snow that has not yet been trampled by human, horse or sheep, to make candy. Likely the syrup will have grown entirely cold by then, and be impossible to remove from the cup, but that is not the point. 

I see the puzzled look on his face. I don't know how to explain in words what I mean by the cup. I am not sure I know the whole of it myself. I do know that I cannot give him back his innocence. I want to tell him that his honor is wholly unstained in my eyes, but any words I might speak in that regard would be nothing less than insulting. More, I want to ask him to marry me, but that would only cause him pain. I have been pricked often enough by Kushiel's Dart; I know the torment that comes with pain that is also pleasure. I have no wish to inflict it on another. Not when I know what the answer to that question would be before opening my mouth to speak the words. I love him as he loves me, and his honor and his love separates us at the same time it binds us together. So I give him the only words I have. 

"I love you, Joscelin Verreuil." I smile, lifting the cup. "Come, my friend. We have new snow to find." 

_Love as thou wilt._

 


End file.
